Deer Tracks Denim Quilt; quilt preparation for custom longarm quilting

Seams in dire need of pressing

Quilt preparation.  So important.  This is the wrong side of a pieced denim quilt my customer prepared beautifully, except for the pressing.  This customer did everything right.  She knew that with all these intersections of blue jean denim, she stitched the seams at 1/2" so they could be pressed open.

All seams pressed open

Pressing seams open gives less stability than pressing them to one side, so instead of the normal 1/4" seam, she went with a 1/2" seam.  Smart lady.  This is a king size quilt, so pressing was a bit daunting for her, so she left that for me.  No problem on my big 4' x 8' table.

What a difference pressing makes.  Remember...  press, don't iron.  I used just a spritz of water and steam.  For more info on quilt preparation, check out my website.

Now let me tell you the story behind this quilt.  You'll love this....  This customer, Mary, is in her 80's.  And for many years she collected jeans worn by her sons and grandson.  Cut them onto 6" squares and pieced them into this wonderful top.  Can you imaging how many pairs of jeans it would take for this 100"x100" quilt?  The blocks in this quilt are well worn with mended holes, stains, scrapes, etc.  And every one of them contains a memory.  Mary made this quilt to be gifted to her grandson.  The grandson is a hunter, and a grown man, so we chose a cool deer tracks edge to edge design to quilt this with.  Check it out.  It looks like a herd of deer walked across this quilt.  So fun!  The design is by Urban Elements, and the name is, of course, "Deer Tracks".

the back of the quilt

I used YLI Cotton Variegated Machine Quilting thread in a Plum variegated on the top, and Superior Threads So Fine in black on the back of this quilt.

And for a full view of the finished top, here it is.

This is another awesome example of a memory quilt, or even a history quilt.  It's full of memories of the boys and men who wore all these jeans, and tells a bit of their history.  A fun quilt which I'm sure will become a treasure for this family.

I thank Mary for allowing me to quilt this for her.  And if you have a similar quilt in need of quilting, I would be honored to quilt it for you.  You can find more information on me and my services on my website, Quilts By Hannelore  or call me at 231-970-1340.  Thank you, Hannelore

Heirloom Roses Custom longarm quilted

Heirloom Roses Quilt Custom Longarm quilted

Lovely swirls on the back of this quilt

Such a beautiful heirloom quilt.  My customer loves little stipple meandering, so that was a given that I'd use that in this quilt.  And it was obvious that she fussy cut all the circular medallions.  So of course those had to stand out.  She also likes elegant feathers and swirls.  In fact the fabric on the back of this quilt are lovely swirls. Check it out....

a lovely swirl border design

That back inspired much of the quilting on this quilt.  Especially the outer border.  I quilted this in a 40 wt, polyester, silver thread.  It has a nice subtle shine, and is thick enough to be seen without overwhelming the beautiful rose print.

The inner border is also a beautiful swirl in pink thread to match the fabric.

Echo quilting and dense background stitching can give a 3D effect

This quilt took a considerable amount of time to quilt.  I started with quilting and ditching all the blocks using the silver thread (Magnifico Thread by Superior Threads).  This stabilized the quilt and allowed me to roll from top to bottom as needed to quilt the borders without having to reload the quilt to quilt the side borders.

The next step was to quilt the outer border, then the inner border.  Once these were done all that was left was to quilt the tiny stipple meander around the blocks.  It was tempting to just quilt the meander, but I chose to add the echo lines around all the blocks.  I thought that would give it just that bit of pop that would set off the blocks.  And as it turned out, it also gave the background of this quilt a lattice feel.  That was definitely an added bonus.


I used 100wt silk thread for this background stipple ( Kimono Silk by Superior Threads).

the block has been ditched and inside elements outlined with thread

The batting in this beautiful quilt is Quilters Dream 80/20. 

Look at the difference in these 2 pictures.  The pic on the left/top shows the round medallion after it was ditched and the features in the rose print outlined. 

the difference an echo and dense surrounding quilting can make

But look at it after I added the echo around the medallion and added the stipple to punch down the batting all around it.

 Look how that just brought this block (and all the others) to life.  What a difference.  To get this effect it takes both the contrast in the quilting and a lofty enough batting to pull it off.

The square blocks are beautiful too.  Into the larger squares I free motion quilted feathers.  Some with a swirl, some without. 

And into the little squares I couldn't resist these cute as pie little swirl hearts.  Check it out.

Echoed square blocks with beautiful feathers

Overall this quilt took about 17 hours to custom longarm quilt; or about $0.06 cents per square inch.  

It was an absolute pleasure to quilt this beautiful quilt.  This I'm sure will become a family treasure that will be handed down through the generations.  Truly an heirloom quilt.

Shown on a Queen Size bed

As you know I don't use a computer, that all my quilting is hand guided.   I love the organic feel this type of hand guided free motion quilting adds to a quilt.  And if you love it too, and have a quilt top that needs to be quilted, please allow me to quilt it for you.  It would be an honor. 

For pricing and preparation information, please check out my website, Quilts By Hannelore
Or give me a call at 231-970-1340

Thank you, Hannelore

T-shirt quilt for a young man; Hockey, Baseball, Custom Free Motion Quilting

Custom Longarm Quilting . . .  Done  :-)

The young man, the recipient of this beautiful quilt, has certainly been heavily involved in sports.  What a great gift this T-shirt quilt will be.  Every time he looks at it, sleeps under it, wraps up in it, he will re-visit all those wonderful moments playing on these teams; the camaraderie, the sportsmanship, the wins, the losses, the struggle.  All those memories.  What a truly wonderful gift.

before quilting

While sitting down with this customer we looked at different quilting techniques and decided that since this quilt is for a young adult, we would stay away from the typical child motifs for these sports.  We chose quilting the "X"s in the sashing and border along with the meandering around the screenprinting.

The "X"s look similar to hockey sticks, so without being kitchy, it still complimented the overall theme of hockey.

see the cool quilting in the blue block

There are a few plain filler blocks in this quilt, so to stay with the "X"s and meandering, we decided to do something a bit more unique with these blocks.  These techniques are taught by Angela Walters If you're interested in more like this vistit  Angela's You Tube page.  

All the quilting on this quilt is hand guided quilting.  No computer; and in this case the only elements I marked are the criss-cross lines separating the meandering in these filler blocks.  I used my presser foot to gauge the spacing for the "X"s.

sashing and block detail

The batting in this quilt is 100% cotton.  Don't know what brand as it was supplied by my customer.  But know that, if you are having me quilt your quilt, I do supply batting.  You can find out all about that on my website .

the back of this quilt

The thread I used on this quilt is  Superior Threads Magnifico Thread.  I used this in both the needle and in the bobbin.  I used a matching grey thread for the sashing and then used this throughout the whole quilt in the bobbin.  For each of the blocks I matched the thread in the needle to the colors in each block.  I think because of the extra layer of interfacing behind each block, this allowed me to keep the bobbin thread the same throughout without having the bobbin thread pull through to the top.  I am very careful with my tension, but that extra layer certainly did help.

Check out the back of this quilt.  You can see on this back that I did stitch in the ditch around all the blocks.  Ditching really does a lot to stabilize a quilt both on the longarm machine and off.

One more peek at this quilt.

one more look at the custom longarm quilted beauty

So if you like what you see here and have a T-shirt quilt top you need quilted, I would love to quilt it for you.  This quilt measures about 100" x 100".  And converted to a square inch price, this quilt cost just under $0.04 cents per square inch to quilt, about $375.  So go ahead and check out my website Quilts By Hannelore or call me at 231-970-1340 or message me using the comments section below.  Thank you for your time and consideration.  Have a great day, Hannelore